Ezra, thank you for this observation

From my reporting with the White House, I think the president’s view of the economy is that globalization is here and it’s not going away. The economy rewards high skills more than ever. Automatic and computerization and foreign competition are wiping out many middle class jobs, and while some new ones are created, it’s not at all clear that enough are being created. But in his view, he sees more redistribution as very necessary in this context. He thinks that if the economy is going to grow but the gains won’t be broadly shared, then it’s the government’s role to try and redistribute some, though of course not all, or even most, of those gains.